1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a color correction information acquiring device and a color correction information acquiring method for acquiring color correction information for compensating a color drift in a printing device so designed as to form an image corresponding to printing data on a printing medium using print heads, a printing control device, a printing control method, and a computer-readable medium with a printing control program recorded thereon.
2. Description of the Related Art
Mass-produced ink jet printers are provided with a print nozzle train with respect to each of colors (kinds) of ink. They are provided with a nonvolatile semiconductor memory having ID (error information) recorded thereon for compensating deviation in the weight of ink discharged from each print nozzle train. Any deviation in ink weight is compensated so that the weight of ink discharged from print heads is matched with that of a reference printer (reference unit) by the following procedure: when each printer is subjected to printing control, color correction data such as LUT (LookUp Table) for calibration adapted to ID is created and stored beforehand. Then, the color correction data corresponding to ID is referred to. (Refer to Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. Hei 10(1998)-278360, for example.)
At printer production plants, the following calibration operation is performed: with print heads not assembled to a printer, a predetermined number of ink drop is discharged from the print heads, and the ink weight is measured. The difference between the measured ink weight and the corresponding ink weight in a reference printer is correlated to ID, and the correlation is recorded in nonvolatile semiconductor memory.
The operation of measuring the weight of ink discharged from print heads takes some time. Meanwhile, when printers are mass-produced, it is desirable that calibration operation should be quickly performed for cost suppression. In addition, subtle errors are produced in the colors of images printed on printing media because of the following reason or the like: there is slight variation in the voltage applied to print heads when the print heads are assembled to a printer.
Use of ID that represents the result of correlation between colorimetry data from a standard image printed with a mass-produced printer and reference colorimetry data brings the following advantage: deviation in color reproducibility produced in each mass-produced printer from a reference unit is compensated.
However, this poses a problem. In calibration on mass-produced printers, inks must be supplied in correspondence with the respective print heads provided for a plurality of ink kinds. More specific description will be given. Some kinds of ink are expensive; therefore, the cost required for calibration is increased. Calibration cannot be carried out unless all the kinds of ink to be supplied are prepared for the respective print heads.